Author
Topic: Had to use some form of this - my mother and my weight (Read 23634 times)

I am a bigger woman. I have been that way for a good part of my life. Part of it is my bad choices regarding food & exercise, part of it is medical reasons.

Recently, I went on vacation which included attending a NYE party & concert hosted by a favorite musical artist of mine. I met up with many friends, some for the first time in person after online chatting, some I've seen before in person. Many of those who talked with me also wanted a picture to remember seeing me which I agreed to do.

My mother wanted to see the pictures from the trip as I went to a foreign country when I was back home. No issues when looking at the ones that were mainly touristy things, etc. As she was going through the concert and party pictures, she came across the ones of me with various friends. She then said, "if you lost about 20 or 30 lbs, you would look better..." It took a lot of self control not to bite back & make any form of a reply back to her. Keep in mind, my mother has never been fat in her life nor has to worry about her size.

Ugh I am so sorry you have to deal with that My mom always says that I shouldn't feel bad when family says stuff like that because they are just trying to show they care, not hurt my feelings. My response is that my way of showing I care is by not bringing up things that would hurt that person.

"If you thought before speaking, you'd be a lot more pleasant to be around."

No? Too harsh, do you think? How about "Mom, that really hurt"?

Logged

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Ugh! Why can't parents deal with the kids they have instead of the ones they wanted? When I was a teen, and 34 - 24 - 34, my parents gave me more grief for gaining an ounce or getting a zit than for failing a test! I spent most of my life convinced I was gross, yet when I look back now at old photos I can see that I was slender and actually beautiful.

So I'm 31 and mom comes to help me with my wedding dress (we sew everything in our family) and the first words out of her mouth, after not seeing be for a couple of weeks, are "Wow -- you've really packed it on." In the first place, I hadn't; it was just that the idealized version of me that lived in her head was much thinner. And in the second place, I'd had enough. I told her "Mother, you've been criticizing my weight my entire life. It hurts my feelings, and I don't ever want to hear about it again." Her answer was that she had no idea I felt like that, and that she'd never mention it again. And she never did.

It's hard to take a stand when family members say critical things -- at that point I'd been putting up with and unfortunately internalizing it for seventeen years -- but when I calmly but assertively protested, it got results. It's worth doing.

this happens to me all the time...naturally i despise it. my usual response it.

"I am shaped like a viking, i am decended from vikings...and please remember what they are capable of" i always say it laughing...but they get the hint

Quaffing beer from horns?

OP I really hope you had a great time with your friends. I find it odd sometimes that parents feel they have a right to say things like this and it automatically comes with the "NO OFFENCE" clause. I always wonder why people say the words no offence right before the want to offend me.

I would try Goodness' approach, I myself has done the same thing with my father who called me the pop-bellied pig for 10 years. I was always a heathy weight, but then developed eating problems and this didn't help. After I told him, he knows better than to try it again!

I don't have a lot of suggestions, but I can certainly sympathize. The women in my family have always been...thick. Not morbidly obese, but certainly not thin. Like many people, I could eat a whole cheesecake when I was 15 and not gain an ounce, but I did start putting on weight (without eating whole cheesecakes!) when I was in my late 20's. My mom is really fond of doing things like poking me in the belly and saying "Where's all of this coming from? I told you if you kept eating like a teenager you'd get fat!" She also likes to send pictures of me with applications she's filled out in my name trying to get me on TV reality shows. Biggest Loser, What Not To Wear, you name it. If it's a show about destroying someone's self-esteem, my mom has tried to get me to go on it.

She only got worse when, a few years ago, she decided to "change her life" by going on a really strict fad diet and going to the gym multiple times a week. She did lose quite a bit of weight (I think she went from about a size 18 to a size 10), but her new lifestyle is not a lifestyle I'm interested in living. My mom is the kind of person who's perfectly happy to eat boneless, skinless chicken breasts and steamed vegetables every single night for the rest of her life (and that's not far off from what she's actually doing). I am an avid foodie and a semi-professional baker. Mom doesn't care. She figures since she lost weight, I can and should do the same. Since she lost her weight, she's only become more obnoxious about it.

My solution was to move three states away from her and only call her on her birthday and major holidays. You might not want to go that route.

Not my Mom, but my best friend who I've known for most of my life, pointing out that I was overweight and telling me about the negative health impacts of being heavy. Uh, yeah, thanks. It's not like I haven't noticed my weight or I'm unaware of the risks.

I really had no good response to that little 'chat' we had, but it still pisses me off.

As a teenager, I was quite thin. Probably too thin. At a family reunion a number of years ago, one of my aunts who hadn't seen me for years commented about how much heavier I was. I paused for a moment, and then I replied, "Thank you."

Not my Mom, but my best friend who I've known for most of my life, pointing out that I was overweight and telling me about the negative health impacts of being heavy. Uh, yeah, thanks. It's not like I haven't noticed my weight or I'm unaware of the risks.

I really had no good response to that little 'chat' we had, but it still pisses me off.

The only response I've come up with for stupid things like that are a very sarcastic, "Wow, really? When did that happen? I must have woke up this morning and forgot to notice *fill in the stupid thing someone pointed out*."

These conversations are part of why I moved far away from my parents. My mom is good looking but has no self esteem so she never can ignore any of my flaws either. My advice is to ignore it since she is the one with the real problem, not you.